I totally agree. It seems like those that are willing lower themselves to what I call "Gutter Tactics" are the ones that are getting the most fame. But it is not them that concerned me. What concerns me is the general shift in the mentality of the general viewing audience to ACCEPT these tactics as normal and not be offended by them.
I was just having this discussion yesterday about a video I saw. The video was titled. "This is HORRIBLE! You should NEVER do this while fishing!" Being a fisherman who also produces some fishing videos for my channel, I was intrigued by the title and decided to watch the video. The video was nothing special, just a guy going fishing. The production quality was pretty good and I counted the use of at least three different pro-quality cameras that were used, and at least one other cameraman in the production. But the actual video had no valuable information. It was just a guy going fishing, nothing else. The title led me to believe that something horrible was going to happen at some point in time in the video. So to not waste time, I skipped around in the timeline trying to find this horrible thing that was supposed to happen. After not finding anything, I read the comments to see if I was just missing something. Turns out that at some point in time in the video, they guy spots a dead fish on the ground and casually says, "That's sad".
Personally, I was outraged at this guy. If I could have punched him in the face, I would have. But what upset me more was not that he was using these gutter style CLICKBAIT tactics, what upset me was that I seemed to be the only one outraged by it. The guy 187K subs and the video had almost half a million views and 13K like and only a few hundred dislikes.
This type of gutter style promotional tactics has become so commonplace nowadays, that people just accept it as the way it is, and do not see people that use it as, Dishonest, Lying, Deceitful, Disreputable, or any other negative adjective. I have worked my butt off four years trying to build a channel around honesty and providing real useful content, and I have less than 9K subs. But people who produce useless content (although well produced) and use the lowest form of promotional tactics to promote their videos gain fame and recognition, and people have no problem with it.
When I lived in Brazil, I saw the same mentality in the Brazilian people. During a Gubernatorial race, one candidate produced a 13-page newspaper ad show all the ways the current Governor was stealing public funds. One way he was stealing money was by hiring people as school teachers, that never went to. The books show that the person was earning a salary of one amount, but that the person was only actually receiving 30% of what their total salary was. The rest was pocketed by the Governor. There was over a thousand names on the list. As I was looking over the names, I found the name of a close friend. I thought surely my friend could not have a part in this, so I went to him and asked him. He happily admitted that it was him without shame. I was appalled. "How can you be a part of this?" I asked him. He very casually said. "All politicians are corrupt and steal money. If I don't do it, someone else will. I am just glad he chose me."
Now try to wrap your mind around this. All of this corruption information was in the newspaper for everyone to read. That governor won re-election many times! It is also a common and accepted practice in Brazil for politicians to buy votes. This is not even hidden. It is open and above board. As an American is is utterly appalling. When I have asked Brazilians about it, they just respond by says: "My vote is the only thing I have of value. If I don't sell it, I am an idiot! No politicians is ever going to do anything for me. The only chance I have to get something out of them is by making them buy my vote!" Say a town wants their streets paved, they will get the community together and agree to vote for a candidate if they sign a contract to repave their streets.
I think a similar mentality has taken over YT viewers (and social media in general). They have grown so used to people using corrupt underhanded tactics, that they now see them as perfectly normal and acceptable.